President Obama gloated Tuesday when the Census Bureau announced that the median household income in the United States jumped a strong 5.2 percent to $55,516 in 2015.

That’s the first gain since 2007 and the largest jump since at least 1967. That’s good news and worth crowing about.

But what Obama didn’t highlight is that household incomes are still 1.6 percent below 2007 levels and fall 2.4 percent short of the all-time high-water mark set in 1999.

Kinda deflating, isn’t it?

I’m not surprised the president didn’t concentrate on the bad news — he’s trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, and focusing on the shortcomings of the US economy is no way to get that job done.

The economy, of course, should be playing a much larger role in this election, and shame on Clinton and Donald Trump for not ­emphasizing it more.

Economic data that come out of Census, including the monthly unemployment report, should be scrutinized more carefully than they are — because they are what hurt Americans the most day to day, ruin dreams of hardworking families and, when the numbers are played with to present a better picture, erode trust in government.

Here are some details on just two points.

First, the 5.2 percent increase came during 2015 compared with the previous year. The Census Bureau doesn’t have up-to-date numbers.

But an outfit called Sentier Research, manned by ex-Census workers, does. And while Sentier’s numbers confirm the increase in 2015, household income this year has slackened off, they told me Tuesday.

Gordon Green, a partner in Sentier, says median household income declined slightly in the first half of 2016. In both 2015 and the first half of 2016, incomes were boosted by a drop in gasoline prices.

“Oil prices play into this in a very, very big way,” Green said.

The second knock is that Census moved the goal posts. Starting in 2013 with a partial phase-in, which was fully implemented in 2014, Census changed the questions and the methods in calculating household income.

For example, Census, starting in 2014, began to “collect the value of assets that generate income if the respondent is unsure of the income generated.”

Also, the government started to use “income ranges” as a follow-up for “don’t know” or “refused” answers on income-amount questions.

There are plenty of other changes — but with just these two, income levels reported could be noticeably higher, say 5.2 percent higher, without the actual income being 5.2 percent higher.

In the fine print, Census admits the change. “The data for 2013 and beyond reflect the implementation of the redesigned income questions.”